'Wizard looks broken too many times, not fixable anymore.' Cringing, hand slammed over her mouth, she shut her eyes, only to hear something heavy settling into the mistress' second-best chair in front of her.

'Aye lass?' a soft voice grumbled. 'You're not wrong. Got this way fighting bad people. You're not a bad person, are you?

Shaking her head forced her to let go of her treacherous lips. Opening her eyes revealed a long knobbly stick with large hands resting on it under a long knobbly nose and blue eyes, one of which was magical and the other, weary.

'My name', said the wizard, 'is Alastor Moody.

She already knew that. This was the auror who Would Not Be Told. The mistress hadn't approved of him at all. 'So, what's your name?' he asked.

'Mistress only having one elf. Not needing name,' she told him. Had, she mentally correcting herself. glancing at the sheeted heap near the window. Had.

'What was it when you did have a name?' Voice, still gentle, something had hardened in his eye.

'Elf not to talk about before,' she whispered.

'Can you tell us about what happened here?'

'Elf not to talk about what happens here.'

'Her name's Hetty,' interrupted the witch Madame Bones had called Stirling, who was sitting, going through the mistress' desk. 'Purchased December. There's a picture. Price, two sickles. The family's daughter was bitten by a werewolf.'

'Got an address?'

'We thought of that,' said Madame Bones. 'Unfortunately, they're not there anymore.'

'I still got her to talk.' said Moody, levering himself to his feet.

'She's not telling us anything,' said Stirling.

'Not yet,' said Moody. 'At least we know that she can talk.' The witch stopped ruffling through papers. 'I might know someone,' said Moody, stomping off.,

Eyes wide, Stirling turned to Madame Bones for explanation.

'She's left everything to the Society for the Conservation of Ancient Magics, which agues no remaining family. Legally, the elf has to be offered back at purchase price.'

'Society for the Conservation of Ancient Magics.?'

'Bit of a library cum art gallery with catacombs below. For an adequate donation you get a portrait in a columbarium and access to landscapes above. If you're famous enough you keep them. If someone is prepared to pay enough, you keep them.'

'Otherwise?'

'The portrait, which is owned by the Society, is excluded from the landscapes. We don't know about the body. Nothing actually illegal and no one has been willing to complain officially.'

'Nice.'

Madame Bones lifted a sheet of paper to the light. 'Ministry watermarked, used for personal purposes. Hence, stolen. I want every page accounted for.'

'You intend to fine the estate?'

'She's had people dismissed for the same thing. I'll be back in an hour.'

When the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement had gone, the younger witch turned to her. 'You can sit down if you like. Make yourself comfortable.'

The witch wasn't her mistress. She remained standing while a team arrived and, having pacified the Devil's Snare, removed the body through the garden door, leaving it open behind them. The heavy scent of roses drifted in as it began to rain.

She heard the front door open. 'But is she alright?' said a voice she had last heard on Christmas eve. Forcibly she stilled herself. Miss Gloria was not her mistress anymore.

'Ask her yourself,' said Moody, who had followed her in along with Madam Bones.

She was being hugged. 'Hetty, are you alright.' She said nothing. A single tear creeping down her face, she did nothing.

'You're ours,' said miss Gloria. 'Mister Moody forced them to put through the paperwork. You can come home now.'

'Until the next time,' said Hetty.

'Next time, I'll let them arrest me.'

'And put you in a cage with old werewolfs. No.'

Even before she had finished speaking, miss Gloria had removed the scarf from her injured throat. 'Clothes, Hetty. You are being given clothes. Can't sell what we don't own. Please Hetty, come home with me and be our elf.' She held out her arms and Hetty stumbled into them. Made dizzy by swirling magic, it was hard for her to understand what was being said. Stirling had handed a file to Moody who had gone rigid, his magic building like a thunderbolt.

'Where are they Hetty?' he asked, very gently.

'Who? said miss Gloria.

'The other elves. Sixteen, over nearly three decades.'

'In the garden,' said Hetty.

'Hetty, there's no one there.'

'Under the roses.' And then she was being hugged again. Moody went out into the garden.

He came back. 'There are small bodies under the flower bed to the right of the path, getting more and more recent the further away from the house.'

Miss Gloria was shaking. 'Monster, she gritted out. 'Monster. They call me . . . ' She was crying but forced herself to calm. 'Tell me, mister Moody,' she demanded, 'Did that creature actually do anything illegal?'

'No,' said Stirling. 'It isn't a crime to kill a house elf unless it belongs to someone else.'

'Legally, house elves aren't people.' said Moody. 'And most people refuse to believe that anyone would do such a thing, so there's no law against it. Perhaps it's time to make them believe.' On that face, the big, evil grin was terrifying. 'Get the bodies dug up,' he said. 'Respectfully.'

'What?'

'The last three were house elves, the others are too far gone to tell. Could be children. I want the team back here within the next fifteen minutes.'

'Right,' said Stirling, standing up.

'Wait,' said Bones. 'You do this, I won't be able to protect you.'

'The only reason I've still got a job is because people prefer me inside the tent. Time I retired and had a little fun. The minister has been looking far too pleased with himself lately. Stirling, don't disapparate from a crime scene.' The younger witch left through the front door.

'Fine,' sighed Bones. 'I'll dust off the legislation. Maybe this time it will go through. Hetty, I'm sorry. This should never have happened.' She too, departed.

'This elf can see file?' The old auror looked at her. 'This elf. Hetty, is wanting to say thank you to other elves before. For being brave. For holding on. For keeping working, until they could not work anymore. All to delay the day pink witch takes another elf.'

Outside, it had stopped raining. File in hand, she went out into the garden where she could feel the lingering traces of elven magic. One name at a time, she gave them back. The team from the ministry arrived and Moody made them wait until she had finished.

She took herself back into the house and laid down the file on the desk. 'Mister Moody is having questions.'

'That, I do,' said Moody.

'Miss Gloria is going home now,' said Hetty.

'I'm staying.'

'Hetty is not afraid of mister Moody and is wanting miss Gloria to go home.' Gloria opened her mouth. 'Please.'

'Mister Moody, I'd love to help you with this.'

'I'll think about it,' said Moody.

When the witch had gone, the old auror lowered himself back into the chair. 'Please sit down.' Hetty sat herself at the desk. 'In your own words, Hetty, I want you to tell me what happened.'

'Night before last,' she began, 'Hetty is cooking dinner when she is summoned by pink witch who is telling her about roses. Morphean roses, she says. Even petals more valuable than elf.'

'Where was this?'

'Ministry. Her office. She is telling Hetty, and elf is knowing that dinner is burning because elf is going right away when called but must not interrupt. So Hetty is bringing roses and putting them on desk and Mistress is punishing Hetty for burning food and telling her to cook new dinner and scrub kitchen and hall to get rid of smell. Hetty is scrubbing hall when she falls asleep. She is being made to wake up by banging, banging in study. Elf is being taught not to open door, not to go in unless she is called.' Wordlessly she raised her mutilated left hand. 'So, elf finishes scrubbing and cooks breakfast.'

'Didn't you know she was dead?'

'Elf knows. Elf does as she is told.'

'Do you often fall asleep when working?'

'Elf tries not to but, sometimes, when she is tired,'

'Was anyone else here?'

'No,' she told him, which was true because, legally, elves were not people.

'Could be Confundus,' muttered Moody, hauling himself to his feet. 'Or wishful thinking. Bloody stupid anyway. Hardly the first time something like that's been sent to the ministry.'

'Hetty is wanting to apologise,' she told him. The old auror's shaggy eyebrows rose. 'For saying wizard looks broken. Auror Moody is not broken. He is forged.' One large hand came down upon her shoulder. Straightening as her energy rose, she smiled nervously. 'Hetty is also wanting to ask what will happen to bodies when ministry is finished.'

'We'll see if we can trace their families. If we can't, I'll ask Professor Dumbledore to find a place for them at Hogwarts. What is it, Hetty?'

'Can Auror Moody be asking him now?'

Moody's weary, non-magical eye looked at her. 'I don't see why not,' he conceded.

Hogwarts was astonishing. The ancient magic in the stone sang to her while Moody made his request to the headmaster who had greeted them at the door. 'We must ask the elves,' decided Dumbledore.

Faced with a kitchen full of elves, she couldn't find words, so she opened her heart and mind and showed them and one of them took her to a place so beautiful it made her soul ache. 'Hetty is also welcome, should she choose.' Unable to speak, she nodded her head and returned to the kitchen.

'Alright?' enquired Moody.

She nodded and then, because the wizard, rather than flue, chose to walk to the gate, she walked with him. 'Oh, one final thing,' said Moody. 'I suppose those were the same roses?'

They weren't, of course.

Hetty hadn't had to open the door. The pink witch had done that. She hadn't needed to go in to see what was happening and she hadn't needed to do anything about it either. She had waited patiently with Dobby, (and she had no idea why he was wearing that thing on his head), until it was over and he had gone away with his roses, leaving ordinary ones in their place, and then she had closed the door.

She was a free elf. Her magic was her own. Plus the little bit that Moody had given her earlier. She allowed it to touch him, to read him. If Umbridge had been murdered, so be it. He wasn't interested in catching and punishing anyone responsible. Hetty had heard the team who had brought up the bodies say that Dolores had it coming. That it was long overdue. Both Moody and Hetty agreed, and anyway, she was just a house elf. What did she know?

'Roses is roses,' she said.